I am afraid of heights. No, revise that. I am terrified of heights. And I'm such a chicken that I'm not just terrified when I'm up high. No, I get nervous when my kids are too close to the open air railing on the second floor of the mall. Really. I get the adrenaline rush to the leg muscles and the whole nine yards. I actually got lightheaded on Tower Bridge and I wasn't near the edge. We took a double decker bus tour in London and Oldest complained she had bruises on her arms from the way I clung to her anytime we went over a bridge. I. Do. Not. Like. Heights.

Which brings me to an interesting question? What the Hell am I doing climbing up a teeny tiny stone walkway that is slick with water and mud, going up the side of a cliff in the middle of the jungle in Belize? Oh right, I'm going to zip line across the jungle five times and then repel down the sides of two cliffs. Because I apparently thought this through.  Yeah right.

Oldest screams out "This is going to be soooo awesome!"

I am faintly nauseous.

Guide One says "hang onto the top wire and pull it down for me." Great, now I'm dangling in the air, over a tiny, rickety platform 97 feet from the jungle floor. And I'm being attached to two tiny wires by nothing but a couple of carabineers. "Now sit down, hold onto the strap and lean back."

Me: "I don't know if this is such a good…" Out into the jungle I go.  Eep. And before I get the chance to really scream, or cry, it's over.

"Don't worry," Guide Two tells me. "The next one is much longer."

Great, so across another small bridge we go and I'm latched in again. Oldest is behind me. "Yay! We get to go again. And this one is higher!"

Yay. Guide Two announces "One. Two. Three. Go!"

And I'm out into the jungle again. This time I'm brave enough to open my eyes and take in the beauty around me. If I'm going to die of fright at least it shouldn't be in the dark. The ground? Well it's really far away. But everything around me? Well that's beautiful and yes, I'm high and it's going fast but with the sun and the butterflies and all the pretty things I'm seeing maybe this heights thing isn't so bad. Wait, is that a snake in that tree? How close is it? It can't launch itself onto the zip line can it?

Oldest screams all the way across about how awesome it is. If that thing was a snake, well he's decided she's too much hassle and has fled. My mom follows not far behind, giggling the whole way.

A short hike and we are at zip line three. This one requires you to use one hand to brake instead of desperately clinging to the safety line like it's your last hope of salvation. This requires a bit more vulnerability on my part. Its okay, I can handle it. The snake was afraid of me after all. Yep, I can do this. Across the canopy I go. Oldest is right, this is awesome. Who was it afraid of heights? Not me.

Because this has been my year of conquering my fears. And I've had a lot of help. Even though most of the people who've helped haven't realized just how much they have. My husband who looked at me in November and said "how has that RWA thing been going?"

Me: "I haven't joined."

Hubby: "Well go join already. Come on. Let's go sign you up."

The members of the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Romance Writers Society that said, let's do Editpalooza over at Savvy Authors together. Somehow, pulling Luck of the Devil off my hard drive and starting to edit it didn't seem so hard if there were other people I knew doing it too. I mean, surely they were kind enough so far. They wouldn't laugh at my little novel. Now, I didn't end up with any of them in my edits group but they led me to the wonderful Liz Pelletier, editor extraordinaire.

Ah Liz, I could write odes to her and to my editor at Entangled Publishing, Libby Murphy. I could write sonnets. Oratories. They could consider taking out restraining orders because of how much I adore them. Liz, the person who helped me conquer my biggest fear and didn't even realize it. The woman who with one little email completely rocked my world and caused more than a few gray hairs. "Why don't you submit this to Heather Howland at Entangled Publishing?" Because you see, that was my biggest fear and my biggest goal. Funny how those things intersect. My biggest goal was to be a published writer. My biggest fear? Handing my work over to someone who could tell me I sucked. But, if I was going to make a go of this I had to put myself out there. And Liz liked it enough to email after all. So off it went. And I went out to get some hair dye to cover the gray hairs hitting the Send button had caused.

The rest? Well that's history. Luck of the Devil is coming out in August from Entangled Press and we're in the Caribbean on vacation while I type, type, type away on the sequel. Because, given a chance, I still love to spend the day writing. This hasn't become work yet and muses willing it never will be. Don't get me wrong it's hard. Especially with all the doubts that maybe Luck of the Devil was the only good idea I had in me. But it's still the thing I'd rather do over everything else.

Except right now, I'm staring at the side of a cliff while Guide Number Three explains the fine art of repelling down a cliff face. Sit back, spread your legs apart and think of England. Oh wait, that's a visit to the OB/GYN. Here its sit back, spread your legs, bend your knees, and down you go. At a rather fast clip.

Guide Number Four, who catches my not inconsiderable bulk at the bottom, "You scream like a little mouse. It's very cute girl." Well thanks. At least at 30 I'm still cute.

Two more zip lines and another repel and we're back at base camp. Guide One asks about my fear of heights. The guy who caught me at the end of the second repel asks "You're afraid of heights? I couldn't tell girl. But you know you sound like –"

"A mouse when I scream?"

"Don't worry none girl, it's cute."

Oldest swears this is the best adventure ever. Hugs me so tight that I think my ribs are bruised. I tell her to lay off the Wheaties and switch to some sort of sugary cereal instead. But she's right. This might have been the coolest adventure ever. At least for now. Who knows? I have a lot of other fears to conquer. Sharks, snake charming, wearing a bikini. Nope, scratch that last one. I'm content to leave it alone.